The Cool Mikado * (1963, Kevin Scott, Jill Mai Meredith, Stubby Kaye, Frankie Howerd, Dennis Price, Tommy Cooper) – Classic Movie Review 7768

The 1963 British musical The Cool Mikado is Gilbert and Sullivan according to Michael Winner, which includes space for comedy gods Frankie Howerd and Tommy Cooper.

Kevin Scott plays Hank Mikado. His father, American judge Herbert Mikado (Stubby Kaye), wants him to marry Katie Shaw (Jacqueline Jones). Hank joins the army and is stationed in Japan, where he falls in love with Tokyo art student Yum-Yum (Jill Mai Meredith). But her jealous gangster fiancé abducts him when he finds out.

A particularly interesting cast of some very talented players do their best to try to make it work, but it was not a very good idea to update the original Mikado story mainly as a vehicle for a few British comics, while retaining half a dozen songs from the operetta.

Also in the cast are Frankie Howerd as Ko-Ko Flintridge, Dennis Price as Ronald Fortescue, Tommy Cooper as Pooh-Bah Private Detective, Mike Winters as Mike, Bernie Winters as Bernie, Lionel Blair as Nanki, Pete Murray as Man in Boudoir, Dermot Walsh, Tsai Chin as Pitti-Sing, Glen Mason, Carole Shelley, C Denier Warren, Murray Kash, Peter Barkworth, Burt Kwouk, Marianne Stone and Ed Bishop, with The John Barry Seven and Michael Winner as Man on Aeroplane.

The screenplay by Michael Winner, Maurice Browning and Lew Schwartz was adapted from The Mikado by W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as soon as copyright expired 50 years after Gilbert’s death.

The Cool Mikado is directed by Michael Winner, runs 81 minutes, is made by Film Productions of Gilbert and Sullivan, is released by United Artists, is written by Michael Winner (screenplay), Maurice Browning (adaptation) and Lew Schwarz (additional material), based on The Mikado by W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, is shot in Eastmancolor by Dennis Ayling and Martin Curtis, is produced by Harold Baim, scored by Martin Slavin (music arranger / musical director), and designed by Derek Barrington. John Barry is the music arranger on ‘The Mikado Twist’.

Winner later dismissed it as ‘absolute nonsense, shot in four weeks in Shepperton Studios’.

It is Winner’s third film in a row with Cool in the title, after Play It Cool and Some Like It Cool.

RIP Lionel Blair (12 December 1928 – 4 November 2021), who choreographed several movies and appeared in Michael Winner’s The Cool Mikado (1963) and in Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night (1964) with the Beatles. Lionel Blair was educated at Craven Park school, where he first met his lifelong friends Mike and Bernie Winters.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7768

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com